Can the Dollar Drop Fast Enough to Keep the Markets Up?

The dollar dropped to 76.5 this morning and that gave us a nice pop in the futures which is fading now (8am) as we move towards our 8:30 Trade Report along with the PPI and, of course, the usual 450,000 weekly pink slips handed out to the few remaining US workers (135M and dropping almost as fast as the value of the dollar).

As you can see from Pharmboy’s excellent chart, our market "rally" is ALL about the declining dollar. We are not used to inflation in this country - it hasn’t been much of an issue for the past generation but that’s what we’re seeing here as we are experiencing lower wages, lower demand and flat prices - THAT IS INFLATION or, as we used to say in the 70s - STAGFLATION. A stagnant (or declining) economy plus inflation is a disaster for the people, even while it may be a boon for Big Business as they squeeze whatever dollars are left from the pockets of the consumers while paying their workforce less and, through the benefit of worthless currency, cleaning up on foreign sales as it’s much easier to sell an IPhone at $199 when $199 was 167 Euros in May and is 142 Euros in October - a nice 15% discount (for foreign buyers) heading into the holidays!

In fact, I had been getting bearish because I thought corporate profits weren’t going to be so good this quarter, what with the lack of sales and all, but I was wrong. I was wrong because corporate profits are priced in dollars and dollars are worth 10% less than they were the last time corporations reported.

So silly me - all profits are inflated by 10% and that 10% is the E that gets divided from the P and gives us a much better price/multiple to hang our hats on and that gets investors to BUYBUYBUY and, as I said yesterday - they may as well because Lord knows it’s utter foolishness to leave your money in a bank and just watch it lose 2.5% of its buying power EVERY MONTH.

Isn’t the declining dollar good for exports? That’s what they keep telling us, isn’t it? Well, it’s not. What do you think - that AAPL is making IPhones in China and then shipping them to Cupertino and then shipping them back to Hong Kong and Tokyo to sell? No, that would be silly. AAPL is a big multi-national corporation that has an office in Cupertino but manufactures almost everything overseas.

And why wouldn’t they? Despite a 20% pay raise at FoxConn (and it’s nice to have a 3rd party employ 100,000 workers for you so you can still claim your 34,000 person work-force is mainly American) Apple’s labor cost of producing an IPad only rose from 2.3% to 3% but that’s in Yuan, which have declined 12.5% with the dollar since May so even-Steven for AAPL!

Only 12M Americans, not even 10% of our workforce, now work in Manufacturing so EVEN IF a 10% decline in the dollar boosted manufacturing by 10% and EVEN IF making 10% more stuff got US Corporations to hire 10% more staff - that would add just 1.2M workers. That’s not very likely when FoxConn is happy to ramp up with workers who make less money per day than a US worker pays for lunch at a roach coach…

IMPORTS, on the other hand, were up 2.1% to $200.2Bn. That is a net deficit of $46.4Bn or a pace of well over $500Bn a year that we ship overseas. Adding insult to injury, we bought a lot less stuff this month - we just got charged more for it as our dollar depreciated. Getting less for more is something the middle class has gotten used to this decade and, as we’ve pointed out before - food inflation does not even take into account the shrinking size of almost everything you buy at the grocery store, yet another way we get less for more as our economy collapses in stealth mode.

Well, not entirely stealthy as 462,000 pink slips were handed out last week to US workers which was 20,000 more than expected so that’s knocking our futures back down a bit, as is the 0.4% increase in September Producers’ Prices (what inflation, right) which is 300% more than the 0.1% predicted by the same idiots who tell us how great the economy is and how we shouldn’t worry about inflation and how Quantitative Easing is a clever policy…

I will say this again. Devaluing the dollar by 12.5% costs US Citizens $3.75Tn of their Dollar-denominated assets in the past 5 months and even if we did hire 1.2M factory workers because it boosted exports (it didn’t and we didn’t), that would still be costing us over $3M per job! That’s a pretty hefty cost to pay to make sure the government doesn’t waste any money on additional stimulus, isn’t it?

The top 1% don’t care because they are hedging with commodities but the bottom 99% are getting raped repeatedly at the rate of 2.5% of their wealth removed each month, just to maintain unemployment at the current crisis levels. This is, as the Joker and I mentioned on Monday, a horrifying plan!

We are trying to get bullish, truly we are and I did send out three new high-return bullish trade ideas in yesterday’s morning Alert to Members but the one I liked best was the bearish play on the Russell, using TZA in a spread that pays 1,000% if we get back to our September lows. I am trying and trying and trying to get into party mode but I just cannot get my brain to switch off so I’ll be hitting the bars this weekend and seeing if I can get my judgment impaired enough to join in with all my bullish media colleagues.

"I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed: and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I fail and keep trying." - Tom Hopkins

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We have had price inflation for the last two years, but the government and the media have ignored it. Now prices are shooting up again thanks to commodity speculation. We already have most Americans barely getting by--that's why no one has money left over for discretionary spending. With gasoline nearly $3 and everything we need getting more expensive, there cannot be a recovery of any kind.

Meanwhile, I don't want to put any money in the stock market; I don't trust it. I trust owning a thing of value, like real estate, jewelry and antiques. If someone has a better idea of where to park money, I'd like to know.

Once the dollar drops below it's historical valuations they tend to call in the geologists and dinosaur hunters, and autopsy teams. So just a few more points drop and where no longer an economic entiity of going concern.

Greetings from a new ZH'er. This article does a superb job of summarizing the threats we(lower 90% of social strata) face as a result of the current printer-run-amok strategy being waged.

I work with a very hard-working gentleman from Belarus(now a naturalized American) who continually astounds me with his fervor for capitalism. Despite fox news being his bread and butter info source, frequent praise for Glen Beck, and having personal experience with hyperinflation in post-crumble Soviet Union(in which he recounts a weeks pay at one boint bought a hand of bananas); he spurns all my attempts to explain that America seems well on its way to a similar fate, especially given the smothering weight of our MIC.

I have referred him to tulving and apmex for wealth preservation, given him sources by which to secure his family's food supplies, and tried to put him onto ZH, but alas, woe is me. I may give him a hard copy of this article, but I would like to get him a book on the topic of currency debasement and would appreciate your suggestions.

It is truly amazing the comfort which people find with their head in the sand, but current research suggests people frequently only accept as facts that which reinforces their existing beliefs. I'm no expert in psychology, but I perceive this tendency at large within society today. What's more concerning is the deliberate use of fight or flight response (aka fear-mongering) by MSM to "nudge" beliefs as a method of social influence.

Our government paid two Standford professors, courtesy of the cia, good money decades ago to devise instructions for resisting social influence. It can be found here.

Great points. Devaluing to boost exports only works when you are not dealing with mercantilist countries. Even if you were to give away your manufactured products they will not accept them. The only way to deal with mercantilists is to operate in a tit-for-tat trading scheme. This has been mathematically proven to optimize trading for all parties. In this arrangement we would talk big about fair trade but throw a thousand rules and regulations in the way of imports that did not meet our economic needs. For example, we would let in rare earth elements but exclude electronics and computers unless re-exported. I have had a great deal of experience in trying to sell to Japan, China, Korea and they are absolute cut-throats. There is no reason the U.S. cannot repsond in kind. For once our politicians should respond to the needs of American and not the Wall Streeters who are making fortunes destroying us.

Bernanke promised a lot, now it's time for him to deliver. Personally, I think he will have trouble keeping his words as usual. And that may be a short-term floor for the dollar. Bernanke must be one of the greatest jokes in the history of civilization.

After reading this, Rope for hanging purposes should be in big demand lol

Things are in a mess and all western fiat needs a massive devaluation in the globalist free trade to balance, Stagflation and declines in living standards for a generation at least,

I think the US $ will bottom out soon and the Euro will have its decline shortly, The race to the bottom I think the will be done over a generation, Things dont look good and if this carrys on hyperinflation cant be ruled out thats why the Fed may do a smallish QE 2 to put a floor under the Dollar, When oil is $1,000 a barrel thats probably the real floor.

After reading this, Rope for hanging purposes should be in big demand lol

Things are in a mess and all western fiat needs a massive devaluation in the globalist free trade to balance, Stagflation and declines in living standards for a generation at least,

I think the US $ will bottom out soon and the Euro will have its decline shortly, The race to the bottom I think the will be done over a generation, Things dont look good and if this carrys on hyperinflation cant be ruled out thats why the Fed may do a smallish QE 2 to put a floor under the Dollar, When oil is $1,000 a barrel thats probably the real floor.

After reading this, Rope for hanging purposes should be in big demand lol

Things are in a mess and all western fiat needs a massive devaluation in the globalist free trade to balance, Stagflation and declines in living standards for a generation at least,

I think the US $ will bottom out soon and the Euro will have its decline shortly, The race to the bottom I think the will be done over a generation, Things dont look good and if this carrys on hyperinflation cant be ruled out thats why the Fed may do a smallish QE 2 to put a floor under the Dollar, When oil is $1,000 a barrel thats probably the real floor.

Can the $$ drop fast enough?? Well of course it can and it will; Ben has told us over and over and over....

Did you see the market this afternoon? Down to flat in nothing, well, flat!!! And check out the afterhours with GOOG reporting.

Ben and only Ben can stop this market. We can wax on and off about all the troubles around us; Riots in Europe, Mortgage fraud, Unemployment and on and on. But until Ben says Sell there will be no selling.

Like it, love or leave it, it is game on. No need to call a top in numbers. There is no such thing. The only top is when Ben says there's a top and he isn't close to calling one yet. Yet there are those who doubt the power of the Federal Reserve. Foolish I tell you, foolish.

Think about it. Here is the one guy who can actually call the tops and bottoms. No need for paid services (well except for his payroll) just listen to Ben and trade accordingly.

Good article, but let's review the benefits of the "Austrian" ultra-dollar policy.

The Democrats want to beggar the currency. But from an Austrian point of view they are the less-problematic party. First, at least they don't make any bones about it. Second, the party of Paul Krugman actually has a record of lowering debt, albeit briefly.

On the other hand, in 1982, the Republicans realized that you could do big-money Keynesianism without admitting it by cutting actual taxes and claiming you were hypothetically against higher spending - or you could even cut spending as long as you cut it by less than you cut taxes (see latest Republicans' latest Pledge To America, i.e.: "Don't worry, as Nixon said, we are all still Keynesians.").

It just benefits different people.

[Warning: partisan rant follows. Sensitive people of a Conservative persuasion may want to skip this. Yes, you try to juice the economy by reducing regulatory overhead - like making the Republicans' #1 anti-red-tape administrator John Reich head of the Office of Thrift Supervision - you know, where he "regulated" or "greased the wheels for" CountryWide, IndyMac, WaMu, AIG FP, etc.. And when that doesn't, you know, work out too well, you try things like Tea Party Republican Aderholt's pro-robo-signing HR 3808.] That's better. Got that out of my system.

But Austrians know that the only thing that matters is the debt ceiling and the Republicans have ALWAYS voted to raise that, and they show now signs of stopping now. But, I guess you've got to start somewhere, so you beat the Democrats first.

Then comes the tricky part. The thing is that an Austrian fiscal policy that has any chance of increasing national savings and being effective would require a $1.5 trillion reduction in federal government spending to put the federal budget in suplus AND would require a 500-billion-dollar tax increase so that adequate GDP is diverted away from consumption and into deleveraging the federal government. That will be a tricky thing to get Republicans to propose.

But if you could get it, an Austrian fiscal policy is a 100% valid way of dealing with this crisis. You either stimulate your way out or you save your way out. Austrians would have us save our way out. It would be more than a little shocking, but it's a totally valid concept.

Except for one thing - well, a few things but we have, inevitably, to focus on one of them.

That one thing? Of course,,, *sigh* ,,,,an Austrian policy would mean an immediate gold standard. What would be the effect of making a shrinking pool of the largest reserve currency gold-convertible at a time of worldwide fiscal stimulus? Clearly we would see the relative value of the dollar rise astronomically, immediately destroying American exporters' prospects.

After all, like the old Communist conundrum of "socialism in one country"

As a person of the left, this gap between theory and implementation is a very familiar debate. When what is intrinsically a global concept - like a gold standard - is applied in one country, the results tend to be the opposite of what was intended. Whether it would have worked or not, international socialism was intended to increase the power of workers and decrease the power of imperialist governments. "Socialism in one country" created a huge, brutal, imperialist dictatorship.

An international gold standard is meant to put all savers and wealth- and credit-creators on an equal footing. A gold standard in one country would massively benefit foreign holders of dollar-denominated assets (gold holders in fiat countries) while American savers (gold holders in a gold-based system) would only see the value of their savings rise in terms of foreign-produced commodites, not domestically-offered, value-added goods and services - if they would see the value of their savings rise in terms of commodities at all. After all, a commodity-based international reserve currency would denominate commodity prices, not move relative to them.

The international wealthy would certainly benefit from having their savings valued in a now hyper-charged currency dollar-heavy international banks would absolutely adore the one-country gold standard as they would see a massive currency-appreciation premium on all their dollar-denominated, interest-bearing assets (well, except Caterpillar bonds, but then Caterpillar would be Canadian or Taiwanese company within a few months anyway). True, banks would see their dollar-based credit creation curtailed, but ask Mohammed El-Erian how much dollar-based credit creation international banks are looking to do in the medium- to long-term.

Yes, American real estate would quickly recover its value as it became, in essence, a hard asset that paid a dividend in hard assets - as long as the people who are paying the mortgage didn't work at Caterpillar or Boeing. The Chinese Communist Party would be absolutely ecstatic - Communists are always desperate for hard currency and they would suddenly have $1 trillion of the hardest of hard currencies on their vaults. Eh, they worked hard. I guess they deserve it.

Farmers, manufacturers, etc.. would all be dead, but they've been bled dry by having to compete with crap currency countries for decades anyway.

There would certainly be a massive savings influx into America. It's even possible that all that some of that money would be invested in some place other than China and VietNam. But I don't see how that new, gold-dollar money would be invested here in the U.S.. Saved, yes. Invested? I don't see it, but then I'm not an Austrian.

One would presume, at least at first blush --- but the much-noted antagonism and outright hatred on the part of their official spokesman and "Senior Analyst" toward the ownership of physical (i.e., non-paper) gold, and most especially toward the advocates thereof (his self-styled "Radical Goldbug Extremists") would tend to belie that initial assumption.

And what in god's name does that have to do with my argument?

You seem to have a similar antagonism, and confused understanding, of the many advantages and the operation of a gold standard, whether in one country or globally.

So Jon Nadler is a bear on gold. So what? I'm a bull. What does it have to do with me?

Again, like Nadler, you seem to put on a putatively gold-bullish face, while in fact attacking almost every aspect of it, particularly any prospect of it returning as a foundation of the world monetary system. "Damning with faint praise", I believe is the old way of saying it.

In addition, your gratutious, repeated, and woefully misplaced uses of the word "Austrian" in the above rant are utterly anachronistic and misrepresentational. I challenge you to find ONE US congressman or senator, aside from Ron Paul, who would even understand that use of the word in this context, much less claim to be such.

Thank you for your clarification of your opinions toward gold. True, believing that the market outlook for gold is strong does not assume in any way a prediliction toward hard money.

I still do not feel that your inclusions or uses of the word "Austrian" in your above comment were appropriate or accurate, however. I think it is fair to say that VERY few official US monetary or fiscal policies (if any) would be embraced by proponents or members of the Austrian school.

Believe it or not, there are PLENTY of people on the left who are extremely sympathetic to most of the arguments we're hearing today from the Ron Paul/Libertarian side.

Just not all.

For decades, I've tried to persuade people I know that they had to get more of an understand of how the money and credit systems work - and they're actually interested.

I think everyone wants money and credit to be based on something other than economic privilege and political power.

A lot of people on this blog want to withdraw their savings from a crooked system system until it's reformed. It's really the same impulse as strikers in France who want to withdraw their labor from a crooked system until it's reformed.

I even think that both sides would agree on who is doing the corrupting. The real question is what is the more nefarious of the corrupting influences: political power or the economic power of wealth.

Because you choose one as the top priority doesn't mean you don't see the danger in the other. I think that the "choice" between free markets and a government that protects working people rather than wealthy people is a false choice.

I will admit that although I have been a libertarian since my teens, I have come to realize over the years how corrupt, fascistic, and UN-free much of our so-called "free market economy" actually is. While I blame the intrusion and collusion of government for most of that, I am also conscious that even within a purely free-market economy, many business and corporations still have or might have a very authoritarian, unfree culture within their business. I am even coming to the point of considering whether or not corporations are NOT truly a free-market institution at all, but merely quasi-statist offshoots of the government, having been created and granted privileges by the same. My gut feeling is that in a TRULY free, free-market economy, such business and financial leviathans as GM and JPMorgan would simply not exist.

The quote, (approximately) "If you want to succeed you must increase your rate of failure." was famously attributed to Thomas Watson Jr. of IBM (Which he may have gotten from his father, Thomas Watson Sr. the creator of modern IBM)

I see there is an internet reference that attributes the quote to Tom Watson the golfer. Wrong Watson.

I found Tom Hopkins' "Quotes" on the Web. I haven't gone beyond the web page but should point out that investigators using high speed photography determined how the bumbelbee flys a couple of decades ago. Scientific American even had an article on the topic.

This does not mean the dollar can't be trashed by HeliBen, it just means that it can go on a lot longer taking far more punishment than any other currency - before going off a cliff harder and faster than anyone could have imagined. When? We just don't know. Next year is as good a guess as any.

Decent article, but not nearly enough of the usual hackneyed pol-baiting.

To be fair, you did mention Al Gore, but perhaps you should have included him in more detail since he's been on the board of directors at AAPL for some time. The blood of the Chinese workers is on his hands, no?

Cool! I think we can all agree that it is all about green and white collar jobs for university grads and bring in Mexicans to mow the lawn and other tasks that are "beneath" the anointed elites.
We wouldn't want anyone to get all icky and dirt on their hands.